Wellington - About 50 residents of a small village on the shores of New Zealand's Lake Taupo were preparing Tuesday to spend a second night away from home as a massive landslide threatened to sweep away their houses. The people of Waihi, the ancestral home of a Maori tribe, agreed to evacuate the village on Monday after officials warned that a swarm of earthquakes, heavy rains and increased geothermal activity made it too dangerous to stay.
Residents were allowed to go back briefly Tuesday morning to feed pets, fetch personal belongings and pray in the church as seismologists and civil defence officials took a helicopter flight over the area to assess the situation.
Geothermal steam rose out of cracks in the 1,300-metre-high Kakaramea volcanic peak above the village which was buried 163 years ago in a massive avalanche that killed 60 people, including the tribe's paramount chief.
Civil defence chief Shamus Howard told reporters another devastating landslide was inevitable "in 24 hours, or a month, or a few years' time."
Hundreds of earthquakes have been recorded in the region in recent weeks, most too small to be felt.
But seismologists said two of the 13 tremors that hit the region during the last three days, measuring 4.3 and 4.4 on the Richter scale, were the biggest recorded in the area for at least 10 years.
Another earthquake shook the area shortly before 5 o'clock Tuesday morning and although its magnitude of 2.9 was not great, it was, like most of the recent tremors, very shallow, which meant it was widely felt.
Howard said the town had been evacuated at least until Friday, its state highway access blocked and a state of emergency declared to keep people away.
Waihi village sits at the southern end of Lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest lake, about halfway between the capital Wellington and the biggest city Auckland.
